sager 9860 freezing on start up....

I have the sager 9860-S and it is freezing on startup. In safe mode it freezes at the blue screen where you select which user. On normal start up it freezes at the windows loading screen. I can enter bios without any problem. Unfortunately with the 9860 you cannot use the hitachi hard drive test disc. Does any one have any ideas or suggestions on what the issue could be? I am leaning away from it being a hard drive issue because in safe mode it knows the different users so the machine is accessing the hard drive to some degree. It is stock and I havent done any work on it myself, but have sent it back to Sager twice to get a new motherboards(who hasn't...) put in.

The operating system is XP. I tried using the recovery disk but the system isnt responding to that either(yes, I changed the boot order so it reads the drive first). Any suggestions anyone has will be much appreciated.

 

Certainly more information like your hardware config will help.

 

When it boots in safe mode, does it run through the Windows loading screen ok, and does it show the graphics correctly for that screen?

 

Graphics look fine, it just freezes when it gets to the point where there are the buttons to log in as the administrator or as user.

 

Try downloading an iso for a linux LiveCD, burn it to CD and then try to boot with it, just to see if your system will go all the way through a boot with a known-good OS. If you're not familiar with linux LiveCDs, they basically allow you to boot the system without ever touching the hard drive, and to run the OS without needing the hard drive.

If the system boots all the way through, then the problem is either that your hard drive is beginning to fail, and has borked your installation, or else something else has borked the installation.

You could also d/l a copy of the Ultimate BootCD, burn it to CD, and boot from that. That will also let us test to see if your system will go all the way through boot with a known-good OS, and will also provide you with some hard drive diagnostic tests you can run on your hard drive to see if it's failing or not.

 

My machine is a P4 3.4/ 60 Gb/ 2 gig ram/ gForce 6800. Ill try the boot disk idea and let you know what happens. Thanks

 

definitely you will need to do some hardware tests:
(in this order)
- Memory ...... using MemTest86+, burn the ISO, and autoboot from it
- HDD ....... using CHKDSK C: /F (in Command Prompt), then check the SMART status using a program like HDtune

And I hope you have been vigilant in doing monthly cleanings of the vents/fans, as well as monitoring the temps.

 

OK, went home and turned on laptop and it came on...sort of. A Window popped up and said "windows cannot find your local profile and is logging you on with a temporary profile. Changes you make to this profile will be lost when you log out" My programs are still here but I couldn't find any of my files. An advanced search under hidden showed my files were still there. Ran a Malware program and had a couple of dings. Rebooted and computer froze again like before.

I have just gotten the computer back on. Now when I look under hidden all my files are gone. It sometimes starts and some times freezes now. I was able to do a restore but it doesn't seem to have done much. I haven't run the diagnostic disc suggested earlier. Does this still like the same drive problems suggested before or maybe something different?

 

you really should do the Memory and HDD tests to help you figure out if there are any hardware issues, which should be replaced ASAP.